MBB: Duke 59, Miami 81 Post-Game Thread

[JBDuke]

Put your post-game thoughts here. And remember, no venting or bashing.

[scottdude8]

Before the board goes nuclear, let’s please remember that many of us chalked this up as a likely loss when the schedule was announced… and that was assuming we had a healthy Dariq Whitehead.

That said, we played poorly. Miami played excellent. Not sure how much more we can take from this one.

Saturday we’ll learn a lot about whether the real Duke is closer to what we saw Saturday or what we saw tonight.

Next play.

P.S. We saw a little of a Ryan and Derrick playing together in the second. Could be an interesting wrinkle, could be desperation. Worth a note.

[TKG]

Half step forward and two steps back.

[chrishoke]

Well, we lost, but I liked the effort.

[simplyluvin]

Our "youngness" was really exposed tonight. It was going to be really tough to be mentally ready for this game, so it's not that we lost. It's HOW we lost. Really careless and sloppy play. Got knocked back in the first five minutes of both halves and never recovered.

Step forward on Saturday, and probably 1.5 to 2 steps back in this one. Now it's about how we learn and grow from this so that we're playing at our best in March.

Everyone played awfully, but Proctor and Flip had rough games.

[UrinalCake]

After watching this game I'm looking forward to doing something more enjoyable tomorrow, like having a colonoscopy.

[ed b.]

A lot of names to take down this season. Our guys may get another crack at them in a few weeks and some of this game may come back to haunt Miami.

[dukelifer]

Let’s see how they respond to this blowout on Sat with some rest and practice. This was a tough turnaround and the team played like Freshman tonight.

[weezie]

Not fun to watch the late game dunk and 3s. Really must have been very important to Larranaga

[freedevil]

Somehow we shot over 40% from the field. 21 turnovers though, yikes yikes yikes.

[jipops]

This was over right when it started.

Truly a bummer that we got 2 Monday night road games right after a Saturday game.

Miami is a bad defensive team, like really bad. Fatigue was of course a factor but tonight was also indicative for how bad this team is offensively.

It was nice to have a small and unexpected glimmer of hope for the ACC race. That’s gone now. Hope the guys rest up for Saturday.

[chrishoke]

Half step forward and FIVE steps back.

FIFY

[SavDukeGrad]

That was really painful to watch. 20 turnovers. Hope we can regroup on Saturday.

[CDu]

The main thing I take from this game is that we really need Proctor to be a steadying influence at PG. And tonight, he was the opposite of that. Ditto for Roach.

Lively and Young played relatively well, but Miami was able to mitigate their usefulness by attacking elsewhere, and the guards’ inability to feed Flip and Young in the post rendered our offense moot.

The team has certainly had its share of clunkers this year. Hopefully the growth we saw the last several games returns.

But ultimately the story tonight is that our guys didn’t match the focus and intensity that Miami had, and we paid for it.

Fortunately it is just one loss. Hopefully the team can find some lessons from it.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Just a horrible effort by our guys. Scheyer needs to borrow from K and have all their stuff taken out of the lockers and lock them out of the locker room before the plane lands at RDU. Make them earn it back.

[Native]

Whatever.

[BlueandWhite]

The defining play of the game was Omier under the hoop, covered by three Duke players, and is able to muscle his way to the hoop for a layup, basically untouched.

And let’s give Miami credit, their defense was really good all game.

[PSurprise]

Very frustrating seeing the lack of improvement in this team. Are any of our guys better basketball players than they were at the beginning of the season? There are some serious fundamental flaws in this team which I'm sorry to say looks like will hinder this team the rest of the year. I suppose there's still time for the 'lightbulb' to come on, which gives me a little glimmer of hope. But that hope is fading fast as the season is heading to it's conclusion.

[tommy]

A poster on the in game thread wondered if the team will get one or two days off before resuming practice. The answer should be no days. No hours. This team should be on the floor at midnight tonight. Practicing. Practicing mad. I don’t care if this guy or that is tired or sore. Get over it. You can rest later. The message has to be sent that this type of no-show in terms of effort is simply unacceptable. We couldn’t have been more lazy or sloppy with the ball, slower to loose balls, or more disinterested defensively.

If Jon isn’t spitting mad about this performance, then he never will
be.

[iragsdale]

Miami is a bad defensive team, like really bad. Fatigue was of course a factor but tonight was also indicative for how bad this team is offensively.

Miami did not look at all like a bad defensive team tonight. Makes me think their lack of defense thus far has been more about effort and motivation than ability. Tonight they looked locked in and played really hard, perhaps the opportunity for payback in front of their first sellout crowd added the missing motivation.